The risk of dying before age 65 is relatively low for many people. Factor in the risk of a disability or a critical illness, however, and the picture changes. Thankfully, recovery is often the outcome. But such events can be devastating to your financial future.

Important information about this chart:
The “What’s your risk” table is for illustrative purposes only, intended to show the relative risks of different life events. The percentages in the above chart are based on a mixture of incidence rates from studies of both the insured and general population, which do not necessarily represent the same critical illness covered conditions or definitions of disability and critical illness conditions as contained in a disability policy and a critical illness policy and are not necessarily representative for any given insured person. Factors that may contribute to an individual’s risk of critical illness, disability or death include family history, lifestyle and environment.

* The likelihood of you, your partner or both becoming critically ill, becoming disabled, or dying before age 65. The combined risk is based on the probabilities for two independent lives.

Data sources:

Mortality probability based on the Canadian Institute of Actuaries’ CIA9704 gender and smoker distinct mortality tables.

Critical illness probability based on combined incidence rates for Cancer (“New cases for ICD-03 primary sites of cancer: 2002-2007”) and the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (“The Growing Burden of Heart Disease and Stroke in Canada, 2003”).

** The probability of dying, becoming critically ill or disabled before age 65 was determined by projecting claims experience to age 65 using these incidence rates and determining the probability of at least one event occurring. The probability of at least one event occurring is less than the sum of the probabilities for all three events, as individuals may incur multiple events.

You are a smoker if you’ve used any tobacco product in the past 12 months.